The Everglades

Mayonnaise is the condiment to be used on a turkey sandwich. In fact, the entire arrangement consists of white bread, mayonnaise, salt, and pepper. That’s it. Nothing else. Attempts to subvert this sandwich with healthy grains, a mayonnaise substitute, a “little bit of that leftover stuffing”, lettuce, tomato, or (God forbid!) mustard, must be repelled immediately.

The dining hall staff at Christchurch School served sliced turkey at every meal. It was on the breakfast bar, the salad bar at lunch, and the deli bar at supper. Christchurch is a boarding school on the banks of the Rappahannock River near the Chesapeake Bay. As a boarding school the dining hall staff made box lunches and box suppers every day for the boys (and the few girls that attended) as they traveled to distant schools for athletic events. The boxes always contained turkey sandwiches, a cookie, and a packet of mustard.

Mustard? It came to pass that students eventually believed that mustard was an appropriate condiment for turkey. I was never able to dissuade them of this belief. For all I know my daughters are now putting mustard on their turkey.

This is clearly wrong-headed. Now listen to this: before air-conditioning was invented it was possible to stick a pipe deep into the sand on Miami Beach and produce a flow of fresh water. This fountain was produced in view of the salty Atlantic. No wonder Ponce de Leon thought a fountain of youth might be found in La Florida!

But when a doctor trying to produce rarefied air for consumptives accidentally made air conditioning popular in the swamps, people moved to South Florida in droves. One cannot find fresh water in the Biscayne aquifer any longer. All of the fresh water must be pumped in from fifty miles away to the west, in the middle of the Everglades.

I have come to understand that we will not save the Everglades with any high-minded moral purpose adequately explained. Americans don’t like high-minded moral purposes. That’s why Jimmy Carter only served one term. If the Everglades can be saved it will be by hitting people in their wallets. And I want it to be saved, not preserved. I don’t want it “put up” like jams and jellies and pickles.

By the time Hank is my age, we are told, there will no longer be any “wild” seafood for harvest. I myself witnessed the wholesale collapse in only one year of the oyster industry in the Chesapeake. Joe Podger said that the “ . . . Everglades is a test. If we pass it we get to keep the planet.”

My love for this river (for river it is) is deep and wide. The Everglades is not deep; it is shallow. Like the tuberculosis doctor who accidentally found compressors to be a homeowner’s dream, I accidentally found the Everglades during a weekend in 1982. Every year since I have wandered the swamps with students, family, and friends preaching salvation.

I have never taken my children to Disney World. I am sorry for this in a way, and certainly would never forbid them to go, but I will not go with them. I am largely repulsed by “theme parks.” My children have never wanted for adventures, however. They’ve navigated the pristine waters of Florida Bay, hunted prehistoric sharks’ teeth on the Potomac, snorkeled reefs off Key West, stargazed during meteor showers, hiked, boldered, and camped in the Blue Ridge, explored subterranean caverns, sailed on the Chesapeake, and kayaked here and there on rivers in the East. To attend Disney World, to stare at a fake mountain, to boat on fake streams, and to walk on paved, green firmament while greater and lesser lights explode above, all the while being assaulted by hydrocephalic cartoon characters, gives me the willies.

The Everglades is a river only a few inches deep but about a hundred miles long and eighty miles wide. We have effectively dammed the river with two highways running east-west, and channelized the remainder with canals crisscrossing the lower part of the state. Imagine, for a moment, how shallow a canal would have to be to drain a river that’s only inches deep. It’s a horror. When I first started visiting the Everglades in 1982 there were about 50 panthers still roaming the area. When I first took my children in 1995 there were none left. I used to love camping in the Everglades, for each night I’d dream of the Florida panther. The only Florida panther (Felis concolor coryii) that I’ve ever seen was in a roadside zoo.

I confess that I am not above stopping at a roadside attraction. Driving across the Cumberlands from Kentucky to Tennessee as a child we used to cross Clinch Mountain. Sometimes our car would overheat and we’d have to stop for an hour while it cooled down. At the very top was a restaurant with a bear in a cage and a few boxes of copperheads and rattlesnakes to see. For ten cents one could use a sort of pay-per-view telescope and allegedly see seven states. The gift shop sold honey in jars shaped like bears.

Several years ago on a trip with my family I insisted that we “take the old road” across Clinch. It was a three hour detour on an already lengthy car trip. At the top we found the restaurant, but it was closed. The bear cage revealed nothing but a tuft of fur to display. There were no snakes. The gift shop only had a variety of porcelain objects with Jesus on them.

The girls were at the “snort and eye-roll” stage of teenagedom on that trip. You can only imagine how well my presentation was received. Getting back into the car Lillian fell asleep immediately while Caroline lost herself in a book. These were heady days for a father.

It is conflicting for me to know that roadside zoos were horribly inhumane. It is good that they have largely disappeared from our culture. I still remember them fondly, though.

I am not conflicted about the disappearance of the Everglades. When the fisheries of the Northeast, and indeed the entire gulf and eastern seaboard, realize that the Everglades is their nursery, maybe something will be done. When the people of Miami Beach realize that salt water intrusion of their aquifer is the result of the rape of the Everglades, then perhaps something will happen. Maybe folks in Peoria or Billings will start questioning what “popcorn shrimp” really is, and get on board. I don’t care if the morality is in the form of economy, this is sacred swamp and it must be held holy. Amen.

Fortunately for me, I’ve got my bride Cindy. She keeps me balanced during all these tirades. It’s time to write about her.

Cindy